A variety of application programs and operating systems include a user interface feature enabling users to view a listing of information stored on a computer or one or more data bases connected to the computer. For example, the “Windows”-brand operating system from Microsoft Corporation includes a File Manager program to help a user keep track of files stored in a computer.
A hierarchy, or tree structure, is a set of nodes or elements that are connected to each other with each node except the root node having exactly one parent. The root node has no parent. Each node has any number of children, from none to many. A node with no children is called a leaf node.
One example of this tree structure is a file system where related information is grouped together using a hierarchy of subdirectories. In this example, the main directory is the root node of the tree and any subdirectories to the main directory are its child nodes. Each subdirectory can be broken into a number of other subdirectories to achieve additional layers of the file system hierarchy. At each level of the file system hierarchy, there may be a number of files, which are leaf nodes of the tree structure. In addition to directories of files, the concept of a tree structure can be extended to other arbitrary groupings of data.
While some systems display or manage information in a hierarchical fashion, recent developments in information technology provide network administrators with data that are not able to be displayed using such traditional systems.
For example, network administrators trying to maintain disparate directories of enterprise users and resources are beginning to use metadirectories. A metadirectory ties disparate directories—such as those associated with databases, e-mail applications, human resource systems, network operating system directories, and other corporate systems, into a single, logical directory. The ability to merge databases and information like this is recent. Traditional systems and procedures do not provide means to access, display, and manage the complex relationships between the data provided by a metadirectory. Data about people and resources is just one example of data. Anytime an enterprise merges various databases together, the enterprise will typically encounter multiple intersecting hierarchies of data.
There is a need for an improved user interface that enables a user to view and manage the complex relationships among data presented by metadirectories.